Motion Simulation, maker of immersive (expensive) video game environments has announced the release of the TL1, the most immersive game ever, the company says. GizMag tends to agree, saying the company has put together all the components necessary to build a game that is the very closest possible to simulating virtual reality. Geeky Gadgets says video game aficionados will likely beg for one of the new systems and Ubergizmo (with video) says it is truly the ultimate simulation environment.
What is is, Gizmag, says, is a cocoon of sorts, big enough for a human being to sit in. Once inside, the user finds physical controls, e.g. steering wheel, gas and brake pedal, etc. Up front is a 180° display without seams. Perhaps even more important is what is underneath the simulator; actuators that cause the user to be jerked around by the virtual events unfolding on the screen ahead of them and to their sides. Once the game gets going, he or she very soon takes on the persona of someone actually driving a vehicle. Players can race against virtual opponents in a crystal clear panorama courtesy of the nearly seven foot wide screen that is made up of nearly seven million pixels.
All this doesn’t come cheap of course, at a price of over $18,000 a pop, each TL1 offers the user a truly unique experience, though most will have to share that ride with others at an arcade, or perhaps at a really rich friend’s house.
Ubergizmo says that Motion Simulation has taken a giant leap of faith with the system by having it run on a standard Windows architecture. This means that any game that will run on a Windows 7 (or Vista) computer, will also run on the TL1, which means right out of the crate, it’s capable of being used as a game simulator for several hundred thousand games. And for those that have really rich friends, players can race against one another in their TL1’s, offering both the most realistic race (other than driving actual real cars of course) ever presented on a computer screen. Not only can players race, they can talk to one another as they do so, just as with other online social gaming platforms.
In addition to costing a lot of money, the TL1 takes up some floor space as well, almost fifteen feet of it lengthwise and five front to back. It’s also sort of tall at over six and a half feet. Thus, anyone choosing to buy one of these simulators better have a god place in mind for it, especially if they plan to spend a lot of time in it, which, they probably will.
